When I first started practising Reiki, I didn't believe that I was intuitive. In fact, I thought that I might only be able to become intuitive after years of dedicated practice, if then. I thought that maybe intuition was only for the gifted few, or if it did arrive for me then it would flash into my head, gone in an instant, and I would not know how to get it back again.

I now realise that intuition is available for everyone, right from the word go, and that by doing just a few simple things we can all amaze ourselves with what we can become aware of. Partly I have come to this conclusion through trial and error, and partly through practising an intuitive technique called 'Reiji ho' that is used in Japanese-style Reiki, a technique that allows your hands to be moved 'by invisible magnets' to the right places to treat. I have a long way to go with intuition: it is a lifelong journey, but I thought some people might find my experiences and experimentation interesting to read about.

For a while I used to use a pendulum when I treated people. I had agreed with the pendulum what it would do if a chakra was closed, spinning too fast, or ‘normal', and I would dangle the pendulum over each chakra in turn and ask 'show me the state of the crown chakra', and so on along the length of the body. Some people ask if each chakra in turn is balanced, others dangle the pendulum and watch its direction of rotation and size of circle traced out, showing how the chakra spins and how open it is. I found after a while that I did not need to hold the pendulum over the chakra; I could just hold the pendulum at my side and ask it as the client lay in front of me. Then I discovered that I did not need to have the client in front of me either, and that I could balance their chakras before they arrived for a treatment! I was starting to realise that there were not too many limits to this technique.

On occasion I forgot to bring my pendulum with me, and I could not find anything to use as a substitute, so I started using an 'imaginary pendulum' which I 'held'. My arm made the same muscle movements as before, without the need to suspend a crystal from a thread. Some people use a pendulum that swings 'in their imagination'. They watch to see how its spin changes in response to their questions. I don't get on very well with that: I never seem to be able to look at the pendulum from the right angle to tell exactly what it is doing!

I tried to move on from this to see if I could dispense with a pendulum altogether, whether real or imaginary. I started 'looking' at someone's chakras by imagining a series of seven circles one above another, and looking at each circle in turn to see whether it was small and closed, or open and large. I did not trust this to begin with, of course, because I thought 'this is just my imagination... I am making this up', so I went back to my trusted imaginary pendulum, and was amazed to find that the pendulum agreed with my 'imagination'. 

Eventually I moved on from the pendulum, and the imaginary pendulum, and used an imaginary 'mixing desk', rather like you might see in a recording studio: a series of seven vertical 'sliders' with a central point that represents 'balance'. I looked at each chakra slider in turn and if it slid downwards then the chakra was closed or spinning sluggishly, and if it moved upwards then the chakra was spinning too fast.

Now I realise that I do not need to perceive someone's chakras, except out of interest, and certainly I do not need to do anything by way of using Reiki to ‘balance' the chakras: Reiki works on the recipient's energy system to achieve more of a state of balance, on all levels, so Reiki works on people's chakras without my having to do anything specific to help, other than by standing by and being a clear channel.

But my experimentation showed me that I was intuitive, that I could trust my intuition, and that I did not need to use ‘props': the intuition was there, the intuitive message was there, and the pendulum (or the imaginary pendulum) was just a tool to use to access what was already there within me.

The Japanese connection to all this comes in the form of an intuitive 'technique' called "Reiji Ho" which means something like 'indication of the spirit technique'. Details of this method have come to us through Frank Arjava Petter and Hiroshi Doi, and information from Usui's surviving students suggests that this method was probably taught to the Imperial Officers by Usui Sensei. This method involves allowing the energy to guide your hands to the right places to treat, so rather than following the Western system of 'standard hand positions' you allow Reiki to put your hands in the right place for each person you treat. You are then gearing your treatment to the individual's energy needs, rather than applying a 'rubber stamp' treatment to everyone. People who I have treated using both approaches have found that intuitive treatments seem to penetrate more deeply, seem more relevant to them and more profound. Once this technique is mastered then every treatment is different: the hand positions change from one person to another and from one treatment to another with the same client, based on their individual needs. Intuitive treatments are liberating; you just merge with the energy and let it happen!

This was the basis for Usui's original method: letting the energy guide you.

I have described Reiji Ho as a technique, yet in fact there is no method. The 'technique' involves not doing, not thinking, not trying; in fact it works best if you can simply get your mind out of the way completely. You feel your connection with the energy, feel the energy flowing through you, and as you do so imagine yourself joining with the energy, merging with the energy, becoming one with the energy... and you simply allow the energy to guide your hands.

What is so exciting for me is that this technique works for almost everyone within a few minutes, so of the 260+ people who have been taught this technique on my ‘Original Usui Reiki' update course, more than 95% have found that it works for them almost immediately. I teach this technique routinely on my Reiki 2 courses and it works incredibly well. The Japanese 'Reiju' empowerments seem to have the effect of giving people greater intuitive potential, so the combination of Reiju and Reiji ho, as well as the energy exercises called Hatsu Rei Ho, work very well together, fitting like the pieces of a simple and elegant jigsaw. What is also exciting is that if you make it a basic part of your Reiki practice to open yourself to intuition, then you will develop additional intuitive abilities, so moving your hands is only the starting point!

It is liberating and exciting to realise that intuition is there from the start, and that all you have to do to access that inner knowledge is to suspend your disbelief, trust that it will work for you, and have a go. Don't try hard, don't force it, and don't think about it... just merge with the energy, empty your head, and let it happen!

I believe that clutter-free Reiki is the best Reiki, and that by cutting away the rules and the dogma we can ‘refine' (to use Lee's word) our Reiki practice. Emptiness is the goal here: no planning, no thought about what you might do, just being there with the energy and the recipient; your treatment has no form, no structure and you simply follow the flow of energy, becoming the energy, merging with the recipient, with no expectations other than to just ‘be'.

Taggart King